Chinese man kills toddler in row over parking

A Chinese man threw a two-year-old girl to the ground, killing her, after her mother apparently refused to make way for him to park his car, state media reported on Thursday.

The man, identified only by his surname Han, wanted to park by a bus stop in Beijing but the woman would not move because she was checking on her daughter at the time, the Beijing Times said, citing a witness.

Han, in his 40s, emerged from his Hyundai Sonata and hit the woman before taking the toddler out of her pram, holding her up and dropping her "forcefully" to the ground, said the witness, a street stall owner surnamed Zhou.

"The baby made no noises after being dropped, not even a cry of pain," the newspaper quoted Zhou as saying.

Another man came out of the car and also beat the mother before the pair drove away, it added.

The mother rushed the girl to a nearby hospital where she was said to be in critical condition, the report said, but it added that she died while being transferred to another facility.

Police found Han, who was released from prison in 2013 after serving a sentence for theft, in a hot spring bathhouse on Wednesday and detained him, said the report.

He could be charged with murder, the paper cited legal experts as saying, making him eligible for the death penalty under Chinese law.

Social tensions have been mounting in China in recent years against a backdrop of a widening income gap and abuses of public power.